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JOSEPH MERLIN HODSON 



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LiBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 



HOW TO BEGIN 

TO LIVE FOREVER 



BY 

JOSEPH MERLIN HODSON 



NEW YORK Q.'lLf^'^ 



ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & COMPANY 

(INCORPORATED) 

182 Fifth Avenue 



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Copyright, 1893, 
By Anson D. F. Randolph & Company, 

(INCORPORATED.) 



The Library 
OF Congress 



WASHINOTON 



Kniijersitg Press: 

John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. 



TO MY DEAR WIFE, 
M. C. H. 

MUCH OF WHOSE FAITH AND SPIRIT ARE IN THIS 
LITTLE BOOK. 

She loved it before publication. 

May she sometimes be able to follow it now on 
its errand. 



CONTENTS. 



Page 

Where is Heaven 9 

The Spiritual Realm 21 

The Spiritual King .......... 31 

Seeing with Spiritual Eyes ... ... 37 

The Kingdom of Heaven on Earth .... 47 

Subjective Love 61 

The Laws of Heaven 73 



WHERE IS HEAVEN? 



The beautiful city! Forever 

Its rapturous praises resound; 
We fain would behold it, but never 

A glimpse of its glory is found: 
We slacken our lips at the tender 

White breasts of our mothers to hear 
Of its marvellous beauty and splendor ; 

We see — but the gleam of a tear. 

Where lies it? We question and listen; 

We lean from the mountain or mast, 
And see but dull earth, or the glisten 

Of seas inconceivably vast: 
The dust of the one blurs our vision, 

The glare of the other our brain, — 
Nor city nor island elysian 

In all of the land or the main. 

RILEY. 



WHERE IS HEAVEN? 

Not far away, not hard to realize, not im- 
palpable and unreal as sometimes it seems. 

The place we call Heaven is veiled from our 
eyes, almost from our imagination; and yet it 
might be anywhere in this vast universe, or it 
may be everywhere. It may be an unseen 
realm, close about us, and all through the 
worlds of space, — a delightful abode of happy 
spirits, invisible to human eyes, incomprehen- 
sible at present, but gloriously real and very 
near. 

It is, however, a kingdom, — a great spiritual 
nation, with its own government, and laws, and 

9 



lO WHERE IS HEAVEN? 

way of living. First there is God's home 
world, and with Him a bright host, forever at 
liberty from grosser life, and awake to every- 
thing good, — free, perhaps, in their movements 
to the infinite distances of space, their nature 
thrilled to happiness by the genial spirit that 
pervades the whole wide realm. Then there 
is the human part of the Kingdom of Heaven, 
our part, where the good life begins, and grows, 
as people acquire the spirit of Heaven, and 
begin to practise its habits. Possibly, also, this 
kingdom may embrace still other people, in 
other worlds, who enjoy the same delightful 
privilege with us. 

But we are naturally eager for some concep- 
tion of the matchless splendor of Heaven. 
Human nature longs for a description. If we 
could only know and see just a little more ! 

By a most faithful natural law, it is possible 
to know and see with great clearness. For 



WHERE IS HEAVEN? II 

while the revelation to us is most disappointing, 
if there be nothing more, the revelation within 
is strong life and feeling and sight. Heaven, 
as we are able to realize it, is not what we learn 
about it, but what we are. It is the life of the 
kingdom of Heaven in our nature, and making 
itself felt through our emotions, — interpreted 
and translated to us by them. God does not 
describe, — he creates Heaven withiny that peo- 
ple may feel the joy of its life. Our feelings 
are the garden in which the flowers of Heaven's 
joy bloom. Not rare flowers either, just the 
common ones that anybody may grow in 
the little affairs of even the most humdrum 
life. We try to imagine the grandeur of the 
future world; but we never see or hear or 
dream of anything so much like it as the feel- 
ing people have who try to be always good and 
always kind, — the every-day feeling of the per- 
sistent goodness th^at will not be anything else 



12 WHERE IS HEAVEN? 

but good. Gleams out of Heaven come, not 
its steady light ; thrills of its joy, not its uni- 
form happiness. Thus little by little the true 
story is told of the ^* sweetness and light *' of 
the better life. Our life, our happiness, our 
Heaven, now and forever, must be in what we 
are, — not in bright weather, not in good health, 
not in the delight of travel, not in cities, not in 
palace homes, not in any placCy certainly not in 
physical excitement, not even in artistic feeling; 
nor is it in being able to think profoundly, — 
in nothing so much as in what we are. Just as 
soon as a person secures a heavenly spirit, does 
heavenly things to the people about him, and as 
best he can acts in heavenly ways, he begins to 
know where Heaven is and what it is like. He 
feels its life. 

It is very reasonable, when we stop long 
enough to think about it, that Heaven should 
be revealed in this world through an experience 



WHERE IS HEAVEN? 1 3 

of its life. There are many things which de- 
scription or pictures or reason alone can never 
teach. It is quite impossible to describe true 
friendship. Nobody can tell it, either in prose 
or in poetry. It is in the feelings, and has no 
description which can carry a sense of it from 
one person to another. The willing service, 
the deep satisfying fondness, the glow of love 
among those who really love each other, has 
no interpretation but itself. Neither literature 
nor any human sign can reveal its joy, unless 
they awaken it. Every one must feel before 
he knows. By the same law every one must 
feel his nature suffused with the generous love 
of Heaven before he can know what it is like. 

Then Heaven in human nature makes pic- 
tures for itself. It creates not from without, 
but from within. It starts with its own warm, 
kindly, bright kingdom and perfects it. It 
finds that it can transfigure a hut or a palace, — 



14 WHERE IS HEAVEN? 

that it can do with winter or summer; and then 
with the sky and landscape and colors and peo- 
ple God has lent this world, it sees what His 
realm may be, if only all are good and all are 
kind. Certain it is, that there is no safer source 
of thought about Heaven than a nature in- 
structed from His word, born from His Spirit, 
and affectionately true to Him. It is the genius 
of Heaven created in human nature, and then 
seeing out o.f that divinely taught feeling. The 
artist sees his picture before he paints it ; first, 
it is in his nature, and then he can put it on the 
canvas. The musician hears music before he 
plays it; his soul is tuned, and then he can 
give expression to the harmony he feels. But 
every human being has capacity for the feeling 
of Heaven. It is a universal genius, which may 
be quickened in anybody, and then will stimu- 
late every other good quality. It is Heaven's 
tree growing in human nature and bearing 



WHERE IS HEAVEN? 1 5 

Heaven's fruit. Love is the same warm, pure, 
generous thing in all worlds; and if it grow 
in the human heart in our world, will it not, 
of its own kind, even here, bear its own fruit, 
though the soil and the climate be not yet 
perfect? 

We do not need to know very much about 
Heaven as a place, but there is a vantage 
ground of knowledge and faith where it is well 
to stand sometimes. Standing within our circle 
of light on this little dot of a world, away on 
the outermost rim of the universe, and looking 
toward the Creator of the transcendent wonders 
of which we do know something, it is easy to 
believe that a Heaven of inconceivable magni- 
ficence might indeed be anywhere, or that it 
might be everywhere. 

If the sight by which spiritual beings see 
were given us, but for a moment. Heaven might 
flash on our vision from every side, — a blind- 



1 6 WHERE IS HEAVEN? 

ing surprise. We cannot see very minutely, nor 
can we see very far, and would not know it, 
even if the great spiritual Heaven encircled our 
little world. Sometimes we extend our natural 
sight by means of a microscope; but make it 
ever so powerful, and strain the eyes ever so 
eagerly to see to the very limit of everything, — 
to see to the end of living matter, to see into 
the spirit world, — and we must helplessly lay 
it aside, knowing that we see only a little further, 
and that away beyond its power, glimmering on 
and on in that minute space, there is still order 
and beauty, more wonderful than the fairy 
worlds of imagination. Then when we turn 
about and look away into the heavens, be the 
telescope ever so strong, it too grows weary 
while we are yet only on the dim border of the 
splendor of space. We do not see much; but 
we see into such unlimited possibilities that we 
dare have any hope and any imagination that 



WHERE IS HEAVEN? 17 

grows up in an honest heart. We who are so 
Hmited need not despair of Heaven with all 
that revelation promises, while the unknown 
universe — so minute, so vast, so wonderful — 
stretches away in all directions. 

Then if Heaven is refused to our knowledge, 
and given urgently to our experience, it is bet- 
ter that with all eagerness we should follow the 
open way, — learning the life for which eternal 
provision has been made, getting always its 
light to see more and more clearly. We do not 
know whether Heaven is in one world or in all 
worlds ; but we know it is reasonable, that there 
is room for it, and that God is both sufficient 
and kind. For the present it is enough to 
know that while moons, planets, suns, fixed 
stars, and nebulse gather into systems, and 
move to the marvellous law which links them 
to each other, away beyond them all is some 
centre world, so vast that these whirling systems 



WHERE IS HEAVEN? 



obey it, as toy balloons obey the hand that 
holds them captive. There is at least room 
that God may have His throne in the blaze of 
the glory of that world that centres the myriad 
worlds of space. 



THE SPIRITUAL REALM, 



What if some morning, when the stars were paling 
And the dawn whitened and the East was clear, 
Strange peace and rest fell on me from the presence 
Of a benignant spirit standing near; 

And I should tell him, as he stood beside me, 
"This is our Earth, — most friendly Earth, and fair; 
Daily its sea and shore through sun and shadow 
Faithful it turns, robed in its azure air; 

"There is blest living here, loving and serving. 
And quest of truth, and serene friendships dear; 
But stay not. Spirit. Earth has one destroyer, — 
His name is Death; flee lest he find thee here"? 

And what if then, while the still morning brightened, 
And freshened in the elm the Summer's breath. 
Should gravely smile on me the gentle angel. 
And take my hand and say, " My name is Death " ? 

SILL. 



THE SPIRITUAL REALM. 



There is a realm where time is forever, dis- 
tance the quick flight of a spirit, weariness 
only the burden of ever-springing joy, slug- 
gishness and disease are forever gone, and 
labor is the happy errand of love. We call it 
the spirit world; but it is the natural and 
original manner of living. It is the world 
and the life out of which everything else has 
come. 

Human life is for the spiritual realm a 
starting-point, a potting and budding place, 
a school, a probation. All who live in this 
world are now spirits ; but for the present 
they are human spirits, clad for the earth-life. 

21 



22 THE SPIRITUAL REALM. 

As the diver, before going under water, must 
be fitted with a diving suit, adapting him to 
hve there for a time, so, that we may Hve the 
beginning of our hfe on earth, are we clothed 
with a body. But we are still human spirits, 
made in the image of God and capable of living 
Spiritually. 

There is, so far as we know, only olie suffi- 
cient reason for the existence of this world 
and all that is in it, — the Spiritual development 
of that which goes flitting away at death. 
Everything by a perfect gradation serves that 
purpose. The human body is ** fearfully and 
wonderfully" made, but it simply serves the 
life of the spirit. When you seek a reason 
for things, beginning with the shining of the 
sun, which feeds the earth into life, and then 
follow on through verdure, beauty, fragrance; 
the whole vegetable kingdom and the animal; 
all commerce, all knowledge, all civilization, 



THE SPIRITUAL REALM. 23 

and all refinement of life, — there is no stopping- 
place at which you can say, '* Here is the rea- 
son why this whole world was made," until you 
come to the human spirit ; and then, as to the 
climax of this wonderful order of service there 
is only one question, the character of the 
spirit. Has it become good or bad by living 
in this world? One thing here serves another, 
and all fit together to serve human life, which 
has met its purpose when the body ceases its 
service, and that in which grew all the powers 
of character goes on. 

If a line could be drawn from the bottom of 
all evil to the top of all good, it would begin 
with the Scriptural conception of Satan and end 
with God. Then this line, in its long range 
between these far extremes, leaving the king- 
dom of Satan, would come into this world, and 
first touch the realm of human life at the lowest 
point of carnal human nature. It would follow 



24 THE SPIRITUAL REALM. 

on up through the improvement of human na- 
ture, and pass from out of the bad into the 
good at the point where in any person Spiritual- 
mindedness is greater than carnal-mindedness. 
Still on its way to God, its course would be 
through all that which in people blesses and 
cures and delights this world, as they become 
less like Satan and more like God. It would 
then pass quite out of the human part of the 
Spiritual realm into the bright glad sunlight 
of the purely Spiritual, where in death the 
eclipse of this life passes off, and the eternal 
day shines full and clear. 

Thus human beings, while still human, may 
come into God's Spiritual realm when Spiritual- 
mindedness begins ; and if they grow steadily in 
the kindly ways of God's kingdom eternal life 
is well begun. Let it never be forgotten in the 
struggle of hfe that we are spirits, and night 
and day, by His help, may be Spiritually 



THE SPIRITUAL REALM. 25 

minded. Growth Spiritually, in this world, may- 
be always more or less of a battle ; but it is a 
necessary war, and a good one. If the battle is 
won our life is saved. The victory is Heaven's 
welcome into the Realm of Pure Spirits, — the 
infinite joy of being forever good. 

There is in the convenience of common lan- 
guage a very free use of the word spirit that 
goes to the bottom of the deepest truth. When 
brought into close contact with people, we often 
feel their *' spirit" before we have any other 
knowledge of their character. Something, 
which in our language has no better name 
than ** his spirit,'' breathes an impress upon us 
which can rarely be defined, of which the per- 
son himself is sometimes scarcely conscious, 
but which comes out of his character from his 
inner being. It is '*his spirit," the ^^ spirit" of 
his human spirit, the human activity of his im- 
mortal spirit. This subtle expression of his 



26 THE SPIRITUAL REALM. 

inner being, almost too subtk for this eager 
world, is character, and can scarcely be con- 
cealed even for business purposes, for it gets 
through the face and every movement of the 
body out into the world, and tells its true story 
of what we really are. It is as subtle as elec- 
tricity; but with photographic accuracy it re- 
veals, not what we intend to be, but the very 
secret of our nature. Others feel the goodness 
or evil of our spirit. The result of keeping 
oneself within the benign influences of the 
Spiritual realm is goodness of spirit. And 
human nature is at its best mood when the 
spirit is good. Person for person and time 
for time, people never have a clearer head, 
stronger common -sense, steadier nerves, a 
warmer heart, and a better spirit than when 
Spiritually minded. 

How human nature interspheres with the 
Spiritual realm and becomes a part of it, we 



THE SPIRITUAL REALM. 2/ 

cannot yet clearly understand. But as we 
make happy use of electricity and wait to know 
what it really is, so may we use the truth and 
the power that come to us out of the spiritual 
realm. We know that God is a Spirit; that 
our Saviour came to us from Him, and while 
still the Son of God was the most natural and 
kindly of men ; that our friends flit quickly out 
of our weakness and infirmity into the realm of 
'' the spirits of the just made perfect; '* that the 
Holy Spirit from the Realm of Pure Spirits 
comes unseen and touches the human spirit to 
quicken and nourish it. But it is the fact and 
the experience of it only that we know, and we 
cannot yet understand all. 

The realm of Spiritual life extends to us, 
and includes many in this world. They may 
often '^ see through a glass, darkly," but they 
do see and feel. In Heaven the nature of every 
.being is doubtless aglow with love and joyous 



28 THE SPIRITUAL REALM. 

with feeling. They are easily like our Saviour, 
because they *^ see Him as He is/' and cannot 
help loving Him, and then living as they love. 
But the whole Kingdom of Heaven embraces 
those of this world who here begin its life, — 
who in the passion and sin of the world can- 
not always so clearly '^ see Him as He is," but 
who do, nevertheless, love Him and keep on 
tfying to live Spiritually. 



THE SPIRITUAL KING. 



From within 
Those palace gates, where dwelt an unseen King, 
Issued wise laws and counsel, wealth increased. 
The nation's strength augmented year by year, — 
While everywhere, like the invisible power 
Which clothes the bare brown earth with loveliness, 
Was felt a nameless influence, that touched 
Each load to lighten it, each wound to heal. 

FIELD. 



THE SPIRITUAL KING. 

In a Western town an aged woman was coming 
near death by a very decisive illness, that per- 
mitted the use of all her faculties to the end. 
One morning she told her minister that at a 
consultation of physicians held the previous 
day, it was decided that her expectation of life 
could not exceed three or four weeks; '*and 
now,'' said she, **I have sent for my boys." 
** Where are they?" was the inquiry. ** Oh, 
they are very widely scattered; but they will 
come. One is in Manchester, England ; another 
in Chicago, Illinois; and another in Winnipeg, 
Manitoba." ** But can they leave their business 
and reach you in three weeks?" ''Oh, yes; it 

31 



32 THE SPIRITUAL KING. 

IS all arranged that when mother wants them 
they are to be notified, and they will come at 
once. The telegrams were sent this morning." 

And in due time they came ; men of affairs, 
strong, busy, successful, gathered about her 
bed, — sons of this feeble old woman who was 
drawing to the close of a very quiet life. 

But what power, " smiting under sea and over 
land,*' had laid hold of these men in distant 
cities, causing them to drop everything, and 
come to this unostentatious bedside? It was 
love, — the omnipotent power of mother love, 
ministered in mother hours at the cradle, in 
youth, and patiently on through the years. 
She was queen in the realm of those hearts. 
She had won her sceptre by the service of 
motherhood, and now ruled strong men, in far 
distant cities, by a power mighty above all con- 
cerns of business or pleasure. They were the 
affectionate subjects of that gentle sovereignty, 



THE SPIRITUAL KING. 33 

which had grown in them its own goodness and 
faith. She ruled, and would continue to rule, 
an invisible queen in the realm of their life, — 
her kingdom the inner forces of three busy 
men who loved her, and who loved what she 
loved. 

** If a man love me he will keep my word ; 
and my Father will love him, and we will come 
unto him, and make our abode with him.'* 

Jesus would be King everywhere, as within 
her sphere a mother is queen. He is the King 
of kings; the King of mothers; the King of 
all people, to make all strong and all good. 
He knows that people do what they love, and 
so He seeks to rule their love. It is not so 
much obedience that He wants as the love 
that is eager to be obedient; not so much the 
'' keeping of His Word " as the love that keeps 
it, and is back of what people do. What sug- 
gests the wishes and the things that have been 



34 THE SPIRITUAL KING. 

told US by absent friends? It is love that does 
it, and love is spontaneous. It starts up out of 
itself and moves toward what it loves. Love 
lives deep in the hidden part of our being; and 
as it is good or bad it rules. Jesus is a Spirit, 
and can be king where love has its origin. 
That is the kingdom He wants. He knows 
where all things begin, and must rule there. 
He loves as a mother, and would be king by 
His Word and by our feeling toward Him. 



SEEING WITH SPIRITUAL EYES. 



There are minor chords in the musical scale, 

And majors of exquisite tone, 
That only the cultured ear may catch 

And wholly make its own. 

There are notes in the wild birds' roundelay 
Which to us may sound harsh or wrong. 

But modulate melodies finely strung, 
To the ear awake to song. 

There are higher lights, more intensified shades, 

And touches of color divine 
To the artist alone in the masterpiece ; 

We see but the given line. 

There are tints of shade, and shading of shade 

In the outer leaves of a rose. 
But fairer, sweeter, more brilliant far. 

The hues its heart shall disclose. 

SYKES. 




SEEING WITH SPIRITUAL EYES. 

When Jesus and Satan met in the wilderness, 
each saw out of his own nature. They had the 
** point of view '* which their previous Hfe gave 
them. The one was the outlook of Heaven; 
the other of Hell. Jesus saw out of love; 
Satan out of hatred. *' All these things," the 
kingdoms of this world and the glory of them, 
'* will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and 
worship me." This was a suggestion made 
from Satan's ^' point of view " with subtle intel- 
ligence. The masterly cunning lay in the fore- 
cast. It was an alternative, with an escape from 

the sorrows of the Passion and the Crucifixion 

37 



38 SEEING WITH SPIRITUAL EYES. 

artfully hinted. *^ Lay aside redemption, relin- 
quish the sacrificial part of your mission, and 
with your power you may be king, much more 
quickly than by the slow and thankless plan 
of bringing this world to live as you do in 
Heaven/' Only '* worship me, take my plan, 
and you shall have all kingdoms and all their 
glory.'* From the outlook of Satan's ambition, 
seeing with his bad eyes, it was a most tempt- 
ing situation, — a keen business proposal with- 
out sentiment, — a plan cold, selfish, brilliant, 
devilish ; it was the cunning of hell off guard 
in its eagerness. 

But Jesus saw with Heaven's eyes. He stood 
with all the glory of that matchless kingdom in 
his memory, and out of infinite love saw with 
eyes strong and clear. Then, full of the spirit 
of His mission, He flooded Satan's heartless 
plan with the light of Heaven, dwarfing it, 
shaming it into darkness; and quickly, from 



SEEING WITH SPIRITUAL EYES. 39 

somewhere out of their own Spirit Realm came 
the angels ministering to Jesus. 

Later in the Hfe of the Saviour, who chose to 
be like us, there were times when He wished 
to look upon spiritual things more fully in 
their own light, — perhaps that He might shade 
His spiritual eyes from the glare of human 
light and see more clearly. He selected the 
conditions and chose the occasions when the 
one part of His nature could easily be more, 
and the other, for the time, less. He went out 
of the street, away from the crowd, apart from 
the disciples, up from the valley into a m.oun- 
tain, alone. There, in quiet and seclusion, with 
the door of eye and ear and every sense 
closed. He talked with God. He was still hu- 
man, but He was at an advantage. Here the 
physical could find rest, and possibly His Spirit 
be more at liberty. In that hour there was 
cheer, and a preparation for the next busy. 



40 SEEING WITH SPIRITUAL EYES. 

dusty, weary, human day, if such it should be 
for Him. He stood again with the Father, 
looking out upon the work which He had come 
to do. It was a great vantage-ground. To- 
morrow He would still see. 

Every human soul needs in some way and at 
some time to stand where earth and Heaven 
touch. It is a luminous point at which is given 
a light that may become phosphorescent in the 
soul. No one but may go apart into a moun- 
tain, — possibly a Mount of Transfiguration, — 
or into an inner chamber, and having closed the 
door, pray to the Father, who not very far away 
seeth in secret. If there be patience and sin- 
cerity the Spirit of God will come, creating 
within the human, in at least some degree, the 
spirit of Heaven, which always for yourself and 
often for others answers the question, Where is 
Heaven? Very gently the Spirit of God comes 
into the heart that waits for Him, even as peace 
comes. 



SEEING WITH SPIRITUAL EYES. 4 1 

'T is not in seeking, 

'T is not in endless striving, 
The quest is found. 

Be still and listen; 

Be still and drink the quiet of all around. 

Not for thy crying. 

Not for thy loud beseeching 

Will peace draw near; 
Rest with palms folded, 
Rest with eyelids fallen, 

Lo ! peace is here. 

Lo ! God is here. It is more than a poet's 
hour. It is looking out toward God, reaching 
up toward him, asking quickness and strength 
where it is most needed. It is getting eyes 
to see and faith to beHeve. 

A Christian woman sits alone as a summer 
evening closes. The soft light and the shadows 
make a rare earthly hour. She has felt the 
caress of the deepening twilight, and it has 
soothed her nature into a sweet conscious re- 
pose. Her imagination has wings. She thinks 



42 SEEING WITH SPIRITUAL EYES. 

easily and delightfully. Her mind has been 
drifting; now it takes direction from her own 
life, — from that part of it which has been best. 
Out of very clear eyes she sees far ahead, 
where she could not before see, — and away 
beyond anything she has ever seen, — the right 
ways of life open to her. They now stand 
out as great highways, and the hour confirms 
everything good. The purposes to which 
sometimes she has had to cling in the desper- 
ation of blind faith go on and lay hold on God. 
Her life centres there, and she knows that His 
mercy and His love never end. She has a fore- 
taste of Heaven. Deep joy settles down into 
her soul, and love stronger than ever springs up. 
The hour is holy — heavenly. It will stay in 
her memory; it will be strength, an abiding 
sweetness for all whom she may touch to- 
morrow and forever. 

Her boy, just budding into the possibihty of 



SEEING WITH SPIRITUAL EYES. 43 

such thoughts, comes and throws himself at her 
feet, lays his head upon her lap ; and her nature 
all turns to him. He knows the mood. Those 
loving hands are never so smooth on his brow 
as after his mother has been sitting alone in this 
way. She will talk to him, and he wants to 
hear the melody of the hour in her voice. He 
is full of questions; she as full as words will 
permit of answers. But how can she talk to 
him, how can she train his eye to see where she 
has been looking to-night? Language is insuf- 
ficient. Statements do not reveal it. How can 
she speak to him so that when he is gone from 
her presence, — when in the coming years she 
is gone from him, — he too may sit alone some- 
times at the close of a day and get strong for 
the next by seeing what she has seen? She 
tries and does not fail. There is a sweet, subtle 
energy both in her words and in her spirit, 
which her son may never be able to name, but 



44 SEEING WITH SPIRITUAL EYES. 

which he will feel forever. It is the inexpres- 
sible force of the Spirit of God in the heart of 
a woman, — the very spirit that makes Heaven 
sing at its work with love, like a bird nesting in 
springtime. It is the spirit that sees most 
clearly in this world, and more than anything 
else gives light to others. 



THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN 
ON EARTH. 



"The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." 

" The Kingdom of Heaven is like unto leaven, which 
a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, until 
the whole was leavened." 

" To this end have I been born, and to this end am I 
come into the world, that I should bear witness unto 
the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my 
voice." 




THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN 
ON EARTH. 

The Kingdom of Heaven begins here. It 
must have its starting-point and its first ex- 
perience in this world. Our Saviour strove 
to make this very plain ; but the great truth, in 
a popular sense, has been missed. The dis- 
ciples never saw it clearly; then the Church 
missed it altogether; and so from Church to 
people and from parent to child has grown an 
idea of Heaven, missing the first and greatest 
truth. Heaven has usually been the other side 
of death, mysterious and dreadfully beautiful; 
so that we wondered and dreamed about it 

47 



48 THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 

until it grew dim and very far away, if not un- 
real. No description was ever given by our 
Saviour of Heaven after death ; but of Heaven 
before death he never wearied speaking. He 
left the curtain drawn against human eyes to 
the one, but to the other He opened wide the 
door. 

It required the drama of a life on Earth to 
reveal the life of Heaven in human nature. 
Some one from Heaven must come on Earth 
and live. Jesus our Saviour came, His life 
unfolding, as He lived with His disciples and 
loved them. He started them mentally and 
spiritually along in Heaven's way, and kept 
with them until they began at least feebly to 
feel His life. The Spirit of His life flowed into 
their spirit until they lived less from the world 
about them and from themselves, and more 
from Him. Then when He left them, He 
helped them to remember His spirit. His words, 



THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 49 

His commands, His love, until they realized in 
some degree that although gone from them He 
still perceptibly, personally controlled their life. 
They found themselves moving toward His 
ways. In their community they said, '* This 
is what Jesus did; '* *'This is what Jesus told us 
to do;" "This is what Jesus would do if He 
were with us now as He once was/* Thus they 
were largely subject to Jesus. They thought 
about it and tried to preserve the spirit in which 
He kept them while He was the centre of their 
circle. In time the Holy Spirit came to create 
and effectively preserve in them the spirit of 
Jesus. Thus they were able to keep on in that 
new life, begun while He was with them. They 
lived somewhat in the spirit of Heaven, though 
under very difficult circumstances, and in very 
trying times. Their relation to each other, to 
those with whom they did business buying or 
selling, to their temple and priests, to the San- 

4 



50 THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 

hedrim, and to the Roman Government, — all 
was controlled by the teaching and spirit of 
their ascended Master. Jesus was their King, 
though now an unseen King, returned to His 
Father, living again in Heaven, but still 
strong for them and in them, as they kept on 
trying to tell abroad that which He had told 
them. Thus there came to them, and through 
them on down to us, the fact that Jesus 
Christ is a spiritual King, ruling this part of 
the Kingdom of Heaven by what He taught, 
and by the Holy Spirit, who is active in all 
whom He causes to be born again. This is 
the kingdom of Heaven on Earth, — the realm 
of the human heart subject to the forces of 
Heaven, — Jesus Christ enthroned with the 
Father, but touching and ruling spiritually the 
subjects of His kingdom who begin their life on 
Earth. It is a King who loves us, living in that 
sinless country, acting in His own w^ay through 



THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 5 I 

the Holy Spirit upon human spirits, and pro- 
ducing under the difficult conditions of this 
Earth results at least hopefully like those which 
are the constant glad life of that beautiful world 
where people dwell at home and forever as 
spiritual beings, — much of the wisdom lost in 
the ignorance and wickedness of human nature, 
much of the force dissipated, much of it trans- 
muted into very imperfect results, but still 
doing something, — slowly growing, budding, 
blooming, and becoming spiritual fruit, and 
at last, in the patient lovingkindness of our 
Saviour King making it possible that human 
beings, having washed their robes and made 
them white in the blood of the Lamb, may 
before the throne of God serve Him day and 
night in His Temple. 

Life in this world must often be very diffi- 
cult. Weariness and disease frequently eclipse 
the best intentions. It is impossible, however 



52 THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 

much we wish it, to keep right on, strong and 
fresh, in the work we eagerly undertake in our 
best moments. So there come upon our good 
intentions and our hopes interruption, disap- 
pointment, failure, — the necessity for patience 
and self-control. As we earn our bread there 
are unavoidable complications and confusion 
of mind. Our rightful profit or advantage is 
often pathetic loss to some one else. There is 
competition keen and determined to the full 
strength of every one engaged. This means 
the jostle and deceit and trickery of all un- 
heavenly people. They are close beside us; 
from them we must buy, and to them we must 
sell. They encroach upon all good motives 
with the most godless vigor. 

So the question comes, whether the life that 
moves steadily on to better things in Heaven 
can push its way everywhere to triumph. Can 
it do so in a world like this? Is there vitahty 



THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 53 

in it which can overcome? Is it constituted 
greater than earthly conditions? Is it a Divine 
fire able to consume and burn supreme above 
all that would quench it ? 

The answer is, Yes. The God who created 
the universe created this one thing in the 
whole universe like Himself, and greater than 
all else. Any one who is alive spiritually need 
not blush or fail in the presence of any force 
or complication, earthly or infernal. God's 
plan for the spiritual colonization of this world 
is adequate. The King of Heaven is supreme. 
The laws of the Kingdom of Heaven operate 
to our advantage, to the development of char- 
acter, to the joyous success of all who humbly, 
vigorously, and in faith obey to their final 
out-working. 

This may be written or it may be reasoned ; 
but is it practically true for all? Is it true for 
the man who is born poor, hindered and handi- 



54 THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 

capped from his birth? Is it true for the man 
who must spend his Hfe in the sewer, with bent 
form all day, and at night aching until the body 
is everything and the spirit less than the smok- 
ing flax? Is it true for the woman who is 
widowed, with a family that she loves as her 
life, but which must be fed and clad by labor 
so sad and wearisome that even her one luxury 
of love is beclouded? For all the teeming mil- 
lions, from the lowest conditions up, is it pos- 
sible that an inner life of increasing privilege 
may begin now, and continue forever? 

Again the answer is. Yes. But not yet a life 
without sorrow, not yet a life where the prob- 
lems are all worked out, not yet a life in 
which we may walk by sight. Life now is a 
great character-school ; but there is untold com- 
fort and blessing for even the tired working- 
man and the burdened widow if their life now 
have shed upon it the light of the Kingdom of 



THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 55 

Heaven. It makes life shine with hope; it 
gives the courage of a good hfe; it makes dif- 
ference in condition a point, suffering a school- 
master, and death the avenue into the home 
world of God. 

Can we do business that way? Can we com- 
pete and live? That is not to be decided first. 
We do not have to do business; we do not 
have to live ; but we must belong to the king- 
dom of Christ, or it is better not to live. If we 
mean that we will only belong to the kingdom 
of Christ if we can compete, if the order is how 
to do business, how to live, how to get rich, and 
then how to belong to the kingdom of Christ, 
we shall be dead while we live, — that part of us 
dead for which all else was created; that part 
dead for which this beautiful world, this wonder- 
ful nature, came into existence. But the fact is 
that the man who is spiritually born does pos- 
sess, in proportion to the measure and weight 



5 6 THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 

of man there is in him, additional instead of 
less vitality to push his way in any competition 
where it is not failure to succeed. The Divine 
life is always plus to a man when he ought to 
go that way, and is only minus when he ought 
not. Any man who wants to get where he 
ought not to be, wants the development which 
the kingdom of Satan gives ; and that king will 
help him most willingly. There is yet much to 
learn in finding out how powerfully organized, 
how well balanced is the kingdom of our 
Saviour to advantage and disadvantage. The 
scales which weigh us, good or ill, turn so 
quickly and are so sensitive that we have not 
yet learned their delicate touch. We put great 
rude business hands upon them. Happiness 
we cannot reach with our own hands ; we can- 
not buy it. When we contend for it in a mas- 
terful way, we only contend, — it is gone. We 
must live happiness. It is the only way. It is 



THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 5/ 

given when even in toil or sorrow or hardship 
our spirit is trustful, and we get it not by 
human processes, but as the fruit of the life that 
may be eternal. 

Jesus is our example of the life of Heaven 
on Earth. He was a citizen of Heaven, and 
came to Earth to live His way in our condition. 
What He said, what He did, what He was when 
He was among us, clothed with our nature, 
touched with all the feeling of our life, is a reve- 
lation of the way in which it is best and hap- 
piest for us to live. There was no better means 
by which the way they live in Heaven could be 
revealed than for our Saviour to come into all 
that Hnks us to Earth, and live out before us an 
expression of His nature. 

This is the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. 
We are a barbarous race, and Heaven is an old 
and very high order of civilization. But Jesus 
was an exalted and capable officer of that gov- 



58 THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 

ernment, and He came to establish a spiritual 
colony here. We must, if we would go to His 
country, obey the written and unwritten laws 
of His mission. 



SUBJECTIVE LOVE. 



Their source is on the mountains, 

The streams of which we drink; 
But we must tread the valleys 

If we would reach their brink. 
Their source is on the mountains, 

Higher than feet can go; 
Yet human lips but touch them 

In the valleys, still and low. 

Their source is on the mountains, 

The streams of which we drink; 
But only in the valleys 

Our lips can reach the brink. 
Our hearts are on the mountains, 

Whither our feet shall go; 
But our path is in the valleys. 

Where the still waters flow. . 

CHARLES. 




SUBJECTIVE LOVE. 



"Love your enemies, and pray for them that 
persecute you, that ye may be sons of your 
Father which is in Heaven ; for He maketh 
His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and 
sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust/' 

Most of us fold up this injunction or lay it 
aside to be worked into our religious life when 
we are better able to use material so fine and 
costly. And we do this very easily, feeling that 
such luxury of goodness is so far beyond our 
poverty that it is not at present to be con- 
sidered. Somehow we feel that loving one's 

enemies does not fit with the hard-faced duties 

6i 



62 SUBJECTIVE LOVE. 

of practical life, where banks are to be man- 
aged, railway trains got through on time, and 
everything done where it is man against man, 
woman against woman, and all against each 
other, trying to win food, clothing, homes, and 
social position. 

But what if love be the strongest poise of 
human nature? What if it alone can overcome 
your enemy? What if God has so put human 
nature together that nothing but love can fuse 
it into its highest power, wisdom, and peace? 
What if in making us in His own image God 
gave our nature a deep-seated law of advan- 
tage, — the law of love? 

But our greatest difficulty and our conse- 
quent failure lies in the fact that we try to love 
in an impossible way. No one can love people 
simply because it is his duty to do so, or be- 
cause he wills to do it. Love is not a product 
of the will, nor is it a pleasant grace of manner. 



SUBJECTIVE LOVE. 63 

It is neither a gush of feehng, a shake of the 
hand, a smooth modulation of the voice, a 
smile, nor any social sweetness. Human na- 
ture can be very genial. It is often most 
charming, not only in its manners but in itself. 
It does love many things and many people; 
but it is always because they are loveable, and 
not because there is a fountain of goodness 
and love that overflows and loves of itself. 
God is, however, such a fountain. He loves 
people, not because they are always loveable, 
but because He is Himself love. No ugliness 
of others makes Him ugly. No anger makes 
Him angry. He is never ** overcome of evil,*' 
but is constantly '* overcoming it with good," — 
with love. 

That is the strong, wise, happy way in which 
God wants all the children of His Kingdom 
to bear themselves. He wants them always to 
preserve the good mood, and then to live it, — 



64 SUBJECTIVE LOVE. 

to consider that anger, hatred, envy, malice, 
etc., are weakness, and that love is power. We 
have all learned out of our own life that in cer- 
tain moods and tempers .we are weak, while in 
others we are strong. Love is the happy state 
in which all our powers interweave and lend 
themselves to do the best for which we have 
a capacity. Love is a delightful emotion, well- 
ing up in a man*s heart and soothing him, when 
at the close of a day he enters his own home, 
and is thrilled by kisses and smiles from those 
who long for his coming; but it is just as good 
a balance of his nature for anything that he 
ought to do. Love is for our general life what 
the trained condition is for the athlete. It is 
the condition in which we can do most and do 
it best. It is never worth while having an 
enemy. If any one is determined to be your 
enemy, you may need to take care of yourself; 
but let him have an entire monopoly of the 



SUBJECTIVE LOVE. 65 

mean feeling. Do not let ** evil overcome 
good." 

One in charge of very difficult business inter- 
ests, in which he was often brought into conflict 
with other men in the most trying relations, 
always carefully began his day at home. He 
was as particular about the state of mind in 
which he left his house as he was about his en- 
gagements with his banker. He tried always 
to go out strong with a strength that came 
from God. By some means, not always the 
same, he daily sought to reach a sense of the 
goodness of God in loving Him. He sought it 
somewhat as he sought the love of his wife and 
children. He knew to neglect the attentions 
they loved was to miss something out of his 
heart all day, and so to neglect God was to miss 
out of his spirit a temper that left him a prey 
to other tempers. One morning, waiting for 
him in his office was the keenest and most 

5 



66 SUBJECTIVE LOVE. 

exasperating director of the company of which 
he was a manager. The next two hours were 
a time of discussion, suggestions, insinuation, 
and threats involving in some degree his honor, 
and in a large degree the comfort of that cher- 
ished home in the suburbs which he had left so 
recently and so happily. 

How was he saved? By the persistent good 
spirit with which he met his enemy. He used 
all his business wit and frequently the dignity of 
silence ; but he kept his intellect clear by good 
emotions. He did not get angry. He was 
shrewd, fair, and kind, and so on safe ground to 
fail or succeed. Something that came from 
God went out of him to his enemy, just as 
something from God went out of him to his 
friends, and it was a spirit which enemies could 
feel as well as friends. 

Love is subjective. There is such a thing as 
a state of love. God is its only source. It is 



SUBJECTIVE LOVE. 6j 

created in those who seek Him, while waiting 
upon Him, — not hurriedly or violently, but in a 
receptive spirit, until they realize Him and feel 
His love. When the emotions are quickened 
toward God, so that the person does actually 
love Him, this feeling, if maintained, will domi- 
nate his relation to other persons. A state of 
love may be unsettled or destroyed; but if it 
exists, it loves. Subjective love is possible. 
It is created by the Great Source of Love in 
human nature, and is able to give, because it 
receives. It has its law, more worthy of close 
attention than the laws of chemistry or any 
other of the natural sciences, for it is life, grow- 
ing into Eternal Life. 

It is a great mistake to try to love an enemy. 
There are those who conceive the idea of being 
generous, and then set their enemies before the 
mind and strive to work themselves into a feel- 
ing of love for them by some such mad process 



68 SUBJECTIVE LOVE. 

as heathen employ in trying to worship idols. 
Love is not created in us by unloveable per^ 
sons. It never begins with an enemy. That 
would be an attempt to reverse the natural 
order of growth. As well try to get fruit by 
planting blossoms, which would soon wither 
and die. There is some similarity in all kinds 
of growth, whether in the natural world or in 
the spiritual world. The order of soil, seed, 
roots, trunk, bloom, fruit, cannot be inverted. 
Loving an enemy is ripe fruit, and possibly the 
most difficult to mature of all fruit that grows 
in human nature. It is not safe to assume any 
duty toward an enemy until something within 
moves you toward him, as something moves 
birds to sing. The first duty may be to pray 
for him in secret, and then God may reward 
you openly by letting the sun and rain of your 
love fall upon your enemy, but very gently, 
and only when there is enough to shine upon 
him, and to refresh him. 



SUBJECTIVE LOVE. 69 

The order and process of growth is Divine, 
and cannot be evaded ; but there is no absolute 
law of time in spiritual fruitage. It is not 
'* three months and then cometh the harvest," 
for by the quick action of forces in the spiritual 
realm, while you look, while you pray, the 
seed may grow, and the field turn ^* white unto 
harvest.*' When there is great sincerity the 
conditions are favorable, and love may grow 
very rapidly. But it is a '^ fruit of the spirit," 
— of the human spirit, when the Holy Spirit 
abides within. 



THE LAWS OF HEAVEN. 



Whither midst falling dew, 
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, 
Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue 

Thy solitary way? 

Vainly the fowler's eye 
Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong. 
As, darkly seen against the crimson sky. 

Thy figure floats along. 

There is a Power whose care 
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast, — 
The desert and illimitable air, — 

Lone wandering, but not lost. 

All day thy wings have fanned 
At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere, 
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land. 

Though the dark night is near. 



Thou'rt gone; the abyss of heaven 
Hath swallowed up thy form; yet on my heart 
Deeply has sunk the lesson thou hast given, 

And shall not soon depart. 

He who from zone to zone 
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, 
On the long way that I must tread alone, 
. Will lead my steps aright. 

BRYANT. 



THE LAWS OF HEAVEN. 

The laws of Nature, human nature, and the 
Bible are from God. They are like highways 
into a larger and better life, fenced by penal- 
ties, commandments, and promises. All God's 
laws lead toward Him, as all roads led to 
Rome, because from that city they were built 
out into all parts of the Empire. 

Many laws which affect our life or comfort 
God did not reveal by statement or Scripture. 
We are expected to search for them, getting 
their advantage as we learn. This knowledge 
is most convenient; but it is not essential to 
the real object of life in this world. It is coal 
for fire, iron for machinery, steam for power, 
electricity for manifold uses. It is better wheat, 

71 



74 THE LAWS OF HEAVEN. 

better wool and cotton and silk for clothing, 
better fruit as it is cultivated, more fragrant 
flowers, better houses, better facihties for 
travel, better health, many better methods of 
living as we learn what God has created and 
their proper use. But people lived for ages 
without knowing these things. Some live now 
with but meagre use of them, and live well. 
It is not certain that they who have them 
with least limitation live best. All that these 
many things give to human life is of conse- 
quence, but of infinitely less consequence than 
goodness. They are better hidden in igno- 
rance than made known, if with their use and 
temptation, character degrades. So Nature 
was created a full but unrevealed storehouse. 
Untold provision for our wants was all ready, 
but all to be sought out, that when labored 
for man might by the larger opportunity live 
better. 



THE LAWS OF HEAVEN. 75 

That, however, which we could not wait to 
find out was given in another way, — it was 
revealed. The Bible is a book of such revela- 
tion. It is psychology in history, the ethics 
of real life shown in the light of God's ap- 
proval and disapproval. A man, a family, a 
tribe, a nation was chosen, and taught how to 
live; then their success and failure written; 
motives and their issue in life were marked 
and made to stand out, as in a modern chart of 
the human body veins, arteries, and muscles 
are traced and colored. The Bible is a book 
in the language of our race, throwing the light 
of Heaven upon the right and wrong tendencies 
of human nature. It is God thinking of us, 
within the range of our thought. Throughout 
the years He turned aside, and spoke to us 
through the men and women nearest to Him; 
He revealed Himself, and gave commandments 
and laws for our guidance. They indicate the 



^6 THE LAWS OF HEAVEN. 

right way to enter and live in the Kingdom of 
Heaven. They were personally made known 
by the Son of God, when laws and counsel and 
love failing, He came on earth, retaining still 
the spirit of Heaven, and walking always in its 
ways. 

May we not then in some things be chil- 
dren, without too much of the curiosity of 
how or why, — finding the way, and by faith 
walking in it? There Is a way to be saved 
from sin ; it is revealed and made a very plain 
way. Those of little intelligence find it and 
walk in it, while others, possessed of the great- 
est knowledge, see that it "' shines brighter 
and brighter unto the perfect day." 

Starting with the lowest of our race, among 
whom there are few laws, and ending with 
those who have the higher laws wrought into 
their nature, life steadily enlarges and becomes 
**more abundant.*' 



THE LAWS OF HEAVEN. jy 

By this method we may conceive the far- 
reaching possibiHties of human life, and get 
the trend of its law of improvement. 

We may get the trend of a law in some such 
way as that by which the geologist follows 
the oil and gas bearing formation of the rock, 
hundreds of feet out of sight. Locating upon 
a map all points within the United States 
where the surface of the earth has been 
pierced, he finds belts of profitable wells, 
bounded on either side by dry wells. This 
gives roughly the trend of the porous rock in 
the States of Ohio and Pennsylvania, from 
which he was able to project a line across Lake 
Ontario into the Dominion of Canada, and so 
strike another of Nature's great storehouses of 
fuel and light 

Following thus the trend of law from the 
savage horde up, we find the promise of 
Heaven; for we come to the great joy of good 



78 THE LAWS OF HEAVEN. 

people, from whom the imagination dare pro- 
ject a line on into the greater light. 

Among savage tribes there is little if any 
law. Each one does much as his own rude 
nature prompts. He is pure or impure, quiet 
or loud, kind or quarrelsome, honest or dis- 
honest, with a wild liberty, until he meets the 
greed or power of another. Any force within 
him which would urge to wisdom or good- 
ness is at the best but weakness; and he is 
altogether ignorant of what it truly means. 
Morally, he looks out upon a waste as track- 
less and unmarked as were our own great un- 
trodden plains in primitive times. 

On the other hand, take a tribe which the 
Christian missionary has reached. He brought 
with him a better way of living, learned by 
him in a civilized nation. He began his work 
among these savages by saying, '^Do this," 
"Do not do that," "Thou shalt," "Thou 



THE LAWS OF HEAVEN. 79 

shalt not," making right ways known to them 
by simple commandments. It was Hke building 
pioneer roads in a new country, but soon some 
began to walk in the ways in which he guided 
them. Gradually they came into better habits 
of living, greater cleanliness; the old con- 
fusion disappeared ; the quarrelsome spirit was 
lessened, subdued; honesty gave place to dis- 
honesty, and in time, there was developed in 
their own nature new hopes, peace, and light. 

Turning now from this partially educated 
tribe, we look upon a great city. Here the 
people ^re numerous, here life is active. The 
home and the place of business lie near to 
each other. The life is a constant struggle. 
All seek to live well, — some luxuriously. 
Competition is keen. The natural tendency 
to encroachment upon the rights of others 
is marked. The temptation to greed is strong; 
there is a constant weaving of interests which 



80 THE LAWS OF HEAVEN. 

cross, recross, and conflict in utter confu- 
sion. But law, all through this eager city 
life, has made a network of ways, outlining 
them by penalties. Law guides the life of 
each individual as tracks guide railway trains. 
The people in business and pleasure seem to 
move as trains move from station to station, 
quickly and safely, because there are tracks, — 
ways, laws. The merchant uses a yard measure 
determined by law ; this saves time, and avoids 
discussion, — sometimes prevents a quarrel be- 
tween seller and buyer as to the supposed 
length of a yard. The exposure of unwhole- 
some food is forbidden, because it would not 
be safe to trust the judgment and avarice of 
every one as to what is to be sold. The kind 
of money to be used is authorized, and so 
payments are made without anxiety as to 
whether or not the money tendered is really 
genuine. There are sanitary laws, compel- 



THE LAWS OF HEAVEN. 8 1 

ling drainage and cleanliness, lest careless or 
vicious persons endanger the public health. 
Law is thus compulsory upon those who would 
otherwise disobey it, while it makes plain the 
right way to others whose intention it is to 
obey. 

We may now enter a circle where the gov- 
erning laws are of a much higher order. It 
is a very select community of congenial people. 
They mingle happily, because all are of un- 
usual intelligence, and possessed of rare purity 
of feehng. They differ in many things, but 
back of their individuality and high attainments 
there is great refinement of nature. Some of 
these people inherit good manners, — courteous 
habits formed in them as they grew; and all 
have a grace born of a warm and genial heart. 
The good rules of etiquette are strictly ob- 
served, but no one is conscious of them. There 
is a wise and just consideration of the interests 

6 



82 THE LAWS OF HEAVEN. 

of each ; and yet, seemingly, they are not 
conscious of such an obhgation. If there is 
any eagerness manifest, it is in giving or 
doing good to others. Where, then, are the 
higher laws that govern these gifted and 
fortunate ones? Written in their nature, **in 
the mind and heart." The generous and lov- 
ing spirit that governs them exceeds all rules 
of etiquette, and *' fulfils" them by its own good 
and strong lawfulness. Out of this spirit there 
might come a wrong manner, but no rude or 
hurtful feeling. 

Within this circle of congenial friends there 
IS, however, an inner circle, possessing all the 
** sweetness and light" of the larger company, 
but having a still finer and better unit of feeling, 
— they are ** one in Christ." MingHng and 
coalescing with their whole being is something 
which has come with the fact that they are " born 
not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of 



THE LAWS OF HEAVEN. 83 

the will of man, but of God/' Who shall say 
what it is, except that it is the beginning of 
eternal life? They have entered upon the life 
of the Kingdom of Heaven. They take hold, 
by simple trust, upon great truths, at first re- 
vealed, now experienced. Their hopes are 
caught on wings that give bold flight into a 
realm where all is good, — a realm of holy 
privilege and very dear friends. Love comes 
when they pray, and grows in them an urgent 
source of feeling; so full sometimes that eyes 
are dull, hearts slow, and hands heavy to 
bless. Human nature has been employed for 
its natural uses, and they have become not 
carnal but spiritual, not gross but good. They 
are far along upon that great way which has 
been created in human nature, and revealed 
in the Scriptures as a pathway into Heaven. 
They deny grossness, anger, selfishness, indo- 
lence, taking up the cross of any effort that 



84 THE LAWS OF HEAVEN. 

may be necessary to do it; and with faith 
that often becomes sight, follow Jesus. They 
do not save that part of life that perishes, 
but willingly lose it, finding always a better 
life. They are of the world, but are kept from 
its evil by the fact that they do not love evil. 
They delight themselves in the Lord, their 
desires growing out of a nature that has assimi- 
lated some of God's nature, and so can be satis- 
fied by pleasures of the kind that bless the 
universe. Thus they have grown with the pro- 
gress of the race, away from the savage into the 
highest blessings of our civilization; but they 
have received a finer spirit, a deeper purifica- 
tion, which has come down to them from the 
civilization of Heaven, the realm of spirits, 
the home of God. 

The wealth of human nature is in its likeness 
to the spirit of Heaven. Who has not had his 
happiest moment in an hour of Heaven, when 



THE LAWS OF HEAVEN. 85 

out of the purest depths of his nature a rare 
spirit has quickened and warmed his whole 
being? We love the good spirit of people, 
because by a law natural on earth, and doubt- 
less in Heaven, it begets in us its own kind. 
But how frequently do we misconceive the good 
spirit of others ! It is often toned down and 
partially lost in its encumbered effort to reach 
us. The light in the human eye, the expression 
of the face, the modulation of the voice, often 
quickens our dull pulses ; but did not the mes- 
sage of love start out of the spirit with still 
greater meaning? Mother love is so strong in 
the spirit that it can give to the hardened hands 
of a toiling mother a velvety touch on the soft 
cheek of its babe, and put melody into the 
broken tones of a tuneless voice as it sings a 
lullaby; but is it not a still better thing than 
ever comes out in touch or voice? The clay 
of our hands and face is so rigid and unre- 



^f 



86 THE LAWS OF HEAVEN. 

sponsive that spirit cannot speak to spirit all 
it feels. 

Heaven is the realm where that which is good 
in human nature has direct expression, with no 
hindrance and no conventionality. It is a 
world where we shall not think or feel or say 
less, but more, and better; as in best human 
society life is richer, deeper, and *^ more abun- 
dant" than it is in the impoverished, shallow, 
circumscribed life of the savage. Then human 
nature is toward Heaven as it moves along 
those ways that open to the savage and con- 
verge in God. It grows by all its struggle. All 
worlds and all other life shall not be in vain if 
intelligent beings are born and come into such a 
spirit that they may live forever, happy. 

Might not a clearer conception of the govern- 
ment of Heaven herald the twentieth century? 
Vast changes come quickly now. May there 
not come in the closing years of the nineteenth 



THE LAWS OF HEAVEN. 8/ 

century the bloom and fruit of human progress, 

— that integrity and refinement of spirit over 
which and through which Jesus the king 
reigns? May not the enmd of the religious 
world be enlivened by raising the banner of 
a spiritual nation? Greater than all denomina- 
tional differences, the unit of all mission enter- 
prise, shall we not see the organized union of 
all churches as the Kingdom of Heaven on 
earth, — thus catching up the great purpose of 
our Saviour, with all the enthusiasm so ecstatic 
a conception involves, and living to the fact, 
permit Him to accomplish His will through a 
church sensitively responsive, not too much 
preoccupied, quick to the impulse of the Holy 
Spirit, and happy because a growing part of the 
universal nation? A national rally is needed, 

— the tie of a definite idea. The mystified 
query of the soul that asks in its honest moods, 
What does it all mean ; why do we live and 



88 THE LAWS OF HEAVEN. 

die? must get as its answer a picture, then a 
fact, — a mental picture of a real, practical, 
spiritual nation, then as a fact the recreating 
power of the Holy Spirit who quickens the 
new life, starts ideas, confirms truth, and stirs 
emotions. 

How to Live Forever? Begin to live now. 
Get the answer in the fact. Acquire the spirit 
that belongs to the Kingdom of Heaven, and let 
it grow now and forever. 



THE END, 



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